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<p>'''<center><big>Part VI</big>'''</center></p><br />
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''Note: For those of you who don't recognize the acronyms, "B.C.E." stands for "Before Christian Era" and "C.E." means "Christian Era"; they are alternatives for "B.C." and "A.D.", respectively, which are used by some archeologists to avoid using a 'religious' dating system unless they absolutely have to. Since I don't know what calendar system the Rangers use, I improvised.''
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<blockquote><small>Note: For those of you who don't recognize the acronyms, "B.C.E." stands for "Before Christian Era" and "C.E." means "Christian Era"; they are alternatives for "B.C." and "A.D.", respectively, which are used by some archeologists to avoid using a 'religious' dating system unless they absolutely have to. Since I don't know what calendar system the Rangers use, I improvised.</small></blockquote>
<hr />
<p>As the three Rangers trooped through the halls, quietly following their 'guides', a breeze whispered past them, bearing a hint of the sea and something... old... and dry...</p>
<p>Niko's face was suddenly lit from within by the first genuine smile Doc had seen her make since arriving on the island.</p>
<p>&nbsp;</p>
<blockquote>"When the sun is too high<br />And the moon is too cold<br />Our shadows converse<br />With the things that are old."</blockquote>
<p>Doc stopped and turned wide eyes toward her. "What brought that on?"</p>
<p>His partner's expression softened a bit, but the smile never wavered. "Can't you smell it? It's an archeologist's favorite find: a Library."</p>
<p>She took a few double-time steps to catch up with the hooded servants, then resumed a pursuit pace when the 'boys' caught up with her.</p>
<p>"It's from a poem one of my teachers liked to say whenever he didn't like the weather back home; he'd say it drove him into the library. Of course, about the only thing that didn't send him into the library withou a pressing reason not to was the need to relieve himself..."</p>
<p>She paused, lost in memories of simpler times, then continued. "He said that the poem itself originated with a bit of graffitti found in the Earth city of Nineveh, dating from 1991 A.C.E., but the rest of it really isn't very pleasant."</p>
<p>"Oh."</p>
<p>Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering through endless corridors, the servitors approached a thick, iron door; it was the first door the Rangers had seen anywhere in the fortress made of anything more durable than iron-studded oak. There were also thirteen intricate sigils, faintly glowing a disturbing shade of acid-green and seeming to float just beneath the surface of the wood and iron in the door. As the servitors approached, the sigils flared for a moment, then faded as the door swung inward on well-oiled hinges.</p>
<p>"I don't like that," Doc commented as the door closed; none of the Rangers bothered trying to make a run for it, as there simply wasn't enough time.</p>
<p>"Can you make any sense out of those pictograms?" he asked Niko.</p>
<p>The esper looked at them for a moment, squinting, then turned her head away with a shiver. "They make my eyes hurt," she said, still not looking at the door. "But I feel drawn to look at them again."</p>
<p>Doc nodded. "I guess it's my turn." He motioned Niko and Buzzwang into a small, shadowed alcove before he pulled his CDU off his belt. He touched his badge, hoping that the flare from his Badge wouldn't attract any attention.</p>
<p>"Tripwire, we need to find a way through the security-fields around the Library," Doc said to the tweaker as it flitted out of the unit. He pointed at the main entrance to the room in question, then tracked his tweaker's flight path. "And see if you can find another way in that leads to someplace where we can watch what's going on in there."</p>
<p>"Sure thing, Doc," Tripwire chirped, then zipped to work.</p>
<p>Doc watched, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I really should be more careful in this environment, he murmured to himself. As Tripwire made contact with the strange wards, Doc's breathing became ragged; Niko helped him lean against the alcove wall for support.</p>
<p>Minutes passed like hours, and Doc's eyes rolled up into his head. Niko was considering asking Buzzwang to help her get Doc onto the floor when Tripwire finally sped out of the Library door and back into the CDU.</p>
<p>Instantly, the color returned to Doc's face, and his breathing evened out. "Whoo..." he managed, wiping his face with a bandanna. "Next time step a little more lively, okay?"</p>
<p>"Sorry, Doc, but these security fields are really weird."</p>
<p>"Did you find a way in?"</p>
<p>"Yeah. There's a staircase about thirty meters up the corridor to the left. Two flights up, and there's a door to some kind of gallery around the outer edge of the library."</p>
<p>"Did you see anyone inside?"</p>
<p>"Yeah. Mogul, Larry, and their demons. And eight of those guys in hoods."</p>
<p>"Can you get us through the security fields up there?"</p>
<p>"It'll be tricky, and I can only do it for a couple of seconds, but yeah."</p>
<p>A few minutes later, the team was in the Library. It was three stories tall, with shelves of books extending out from a central well like spokes on a wheel. The top story, where Tripwire had led them, only had shelves for a third of the floor's circumference; the space on the rest of the floor was devoted to examples of Chinese art dating as far back as the first century C.E. Fortunately for the Rangers, there were also some benches that made for a convenient 'duck blind'.</p>
<p>Two floors below them, Morgul was engrossed in an ancient-looking tome. One arm was scribbling notes on a pad, another was furiously working an abacus, a third was running a finger up and down the columns of text, and the fourth was simply cupping his chin while a claw tapped at a stiff part of his mouth.</p>
<p>Niko whispered to Doc, "It looks like he's studying the I Ching, an ancient book on Chinese divination."</p>
<p>Doc nodded, his attention focused on another, smaller and square table a few feet away from Mogul's. Larry was seated at a chair with his back to his master, also reading from a book; a hand of what looked like Western playing cards gripped in his fingers and a card-dealer's bill-cap perched on his forehead. On each of the remaining sides of the table sat one of Mogul's demon servitors, also holding five cards, looking at Larry with vaguely bored expressions. Eight white plastic disks sat in a pile in the middle of the table, and the supply of chips in front of all the players seemed about equal.</p>
<p>"And our friend Larry there is studying the 1769 edition of _Hoyle's Rules of Games_," Doc said, indicating the tome which commanded all of the apprentice sorceror's attention.</p>
<p>Niko squinted, then glanced at Doc. "How can you tell which edition he's reading at this range? I can barely see make out the title."</p>
<p>Doc shrugged. "Sheerest logic, my dear Niko. The 1769 edition was the first and only one written and edited by Hoyle himself." He waved a free hand and glanced around, indicating the Library and the fortress-island as a whole. "This doesn't strike me as the kind of place run by people who would settle for 'revised' editions."</p>
<p>While Niko considered this, Doc pointed at the eight hooded servants standing around the room; two on either side of the main door, and two near each of the sorcerors. "I wonder if there are any more around?"</p>
<p>Niko shrugged, then settled herself a bit more comfortably to observe the scene unfolding below.</p>
<p>"Okay, now, anyone want to bet?" Larry prompted the demons, attention locked on the text.</p>
<p>"Two," rumbled the demon to Larry's left, tossing a pair of white chips into the pot. The other demons followed suit, none raising. It was slightly eerie, how all three of the demons could have such differently-pitched voices while managing almost identical tones.</p>
<p>Larry absently tossed in two blue chips, never looking away from the book; the demon to his left reached out and put the chips back in the apprentice's pile and replaced them with a pair of white ones. Larry's dealer-shade never stopped swiveling back and forth as he read.</p>
<p>"I think someone's going to get taken," Doc commented under his breath.</p>
<p>After a few moments, Larry started to pull two cards out of his hand, then paused. "Oh, yeah." He turned to the demon to his left. "Do you want any cards?"</p>
<p>"One," was the reply. Larry passed him one, then went to the next.</p>
<p>"Three."</p>
<p>"One."</p>
<p>"...And, uh, dealer takes two," Larry said. As he looked at his cards, his face almost split in an evil grin as his eyes went wide. "Anyone want to bet now?" he asked, utterly failing to keep a gleeful note out of his voice.</p>
<p>All three demons folded their hands shut and placed them down on the table. "Fold," they said in unison.</p>
<p>Larry's jaw dropped. "You can't do that!" he screeched. "I got a flush!" He turned his hand around for everyone, including the hidden Rangers, to see.</p>
<p>Doc's eyes widened, then he clasped both hands over his mouth as tears started squeezing themselves out of his clamped-shut eyes.</p>
<p>"What?" Niko demanded in a whisper, nudging him with her shoulder and unable to keep herself from grinning.</p>
<p>Her partner's shoulders shaking with silent laughter, he managed to whisper back, "That's not a flush, it's a *straight*, and he *drew* to it. He's REALLY in trouble now."</p>
<p>Sure enough, as soon as the demons had gotten a good look at Larry's cards, they stood up in perfect synchronization, pushing their chairs back and facing the apprentice sorceror. Before the suddenly bug-eyed being could so much as stammer, "W-w-w-what?", they had gathered him up in their steel-strong, spindly arms: one held his legs, and each of the other two pinned his hands and legs.</p>
<p>Mogul, still deep in his contemplation of ancient Chinese esoterica, merely raised the hand from the abacus, pointing at a statue in an alcove opposite the Rangers' observation post. In it was a statue of a rather human-seeming monkey in ornate robes and wielding a strange-looking staff. The demons bowed, still holding Larry above their heads, then rotated their prisoner to face the statue head-on.</p>
<p>"What're you... hey, c'mon, this isn't... what'd I... Hey!" Larry sputtered as he was carried forward like a a battering-ram toward a castle-door.</p>
<p>"Kiss the King, Kiss the King," chanted the demons in a chorus that sounded like an orchestrated pack of growling dogs.</p>
<p>"That's K'un Wu Sun, the Monkey King," Niko said, stifling a laugh of her own.</p>
<p>Doc managed to gasp, "Word to the wise, Buzzwang: Never, ever, *ever* draw to an inside straight," before collapsing in helpless, silent laughter.</p>
<p>Niko forced herself to watch until the two demons on Larry's arms each released one hand; Larry's front was now supported on the left demon's palm on his chest and the right demon's vise-like grip holding his wrists to his midsection. They each put the palms of their now-free hands on either side of Larry's face to make sure he landed a juicy buss on the statue's wide mouth.</p>
<p>But what left even Niko's legendary self-control in tatters and scraps was the low, sonorous call of "mmmmuuu-WAH!" that the demons made as Larry made contact.</p>
<p>The Rangers were too busy laughing, and Buzzwang too deeply engrossed in observing their behavior, to notice the heavy 'thud, thud' of approaching feet until it was too late. Huge, hornlike hands grabbed them all by the neck, cutting off their laughter instantly. The Gunslinger held the three up, their boots several centimeters off the ground.</p>
<p>"Didn't see me readin' in the corner," he muttered, clumping toward the stairs with his burdens, Doc and Niko on one side, the heavy Buzzwang on the other. "Wrecked a good story. Gonna make 'em pay for that. Oh, yeah, man..."</p>
<p>Niko managed to pick out the Gunslinger's 'corner' and noted the scroll left mostly-unrolled along the floor and beside the chair; with a split-second to observe it, she could almost swear that it was a children's reader for basic Cantonese.</p>
<p>"You betcha, can't stand buttinskies, dig it," the Gunslinger grumbled as he ambled down the stairs toward the main level. "Spoil everything, they do. Yeah. Solid..."</p>
<p>Murmuring to himself the entire way, the Gunslinger stopped when he made it to the opposite side of Mogul's table. The sorceror finished writing a sentence, then put the pen down. His other hands closed the book and cleared the abacus so he could focus his attention on the intruders.</p>
<p>"Thought I wouldn't notice your little toys, didn't'cha, Doc? Thought you could just sneak in here and watch me study your Earth-magicks, didn't'cha, Niko? Ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, what else could you do? You're just Galaxy Rangers, got no respect for magic anywhere, even on your home planet." He chuckled in his irritating, high-pitched staccato. "You're messing with *Mogul*, you blue-and-white bums, and you're not gonna stop me from taking over this planet!"</p>
<p>He reached into his robe and pulled out a deck of playing cards. "I'd never let Larry study anything I hadn't mastered myself, you know," he commented, shuffling them with surprisingly fluid motions of his nut-brown fingers. "Let's see how you like *this* little message from your planet's greatest sorceror, Edmond Hoyle!"</p>
<p>Suddenly, he held up one three-fingered hand to face Buzzwang. "Mind Tweak!" Mogul shouted, a hand of cards appearing in his palm. "This should teach you something! Ha ha ha ha ha!"</p>
<p>Doc's heart sank as he saw a Royal Flush with a Joker at the Queen's place in the villain's grip; "Whatever he's throwing a Buzzwang, it's going to hurt a lot..." he thought to himself.</p>
<p>The cards evaporated into wisps of glimmering white smoke which spiralled and swooped out of Mogul's palm, wrapping around Buzzwang's stiff body. The Gunslinger dropped him to the floor, wringing that hand and making pained comments to himself which the Rangers ignored while they watched Buzzwang in horror. The spell seeped into the android's body, fading through his outer plating like the duralloy was a hologram. Light began to flare from the joints in Buzzwang's limbs; just flickers at first, then getting stronger. An electronic scream sounded from his jaws, as lightning began to play across the top of his head. His back arched and his hands clawed as the electrical discharges danced up and down his frame.</p>
<p>Suddenly, it was over. A final spark glimmered from a hollow at the base of his throat, then winked out.</p>
<p>"See? See?!? That's what happens to people who cross me! Ha ha hahahaha!" Mogul chortled, almost dancing a jig in his robe as he laughed.</p>
<p>Doc found himself feeling sorry that the android had gone out like that. Sure, Buzzwang had been an annoying being, his voice had gotten on Doc's nerves, and he'd never gotten over that ridiculous desire to be human, but the android at least deserved to go out fighting...</p>
<p>"Well, so much for 'Terra's defenses'," Niko murmured.</p>
<p>Doc nodded... Wait. Had one of Buzzwang's fingers twitched?</p>
<p>Larry frowned, then turned to _Hoyle's Rules of Card Games_. He flipped through the pages, eyes flickering at the text. He stopped, then turned the book sideways to study the notes that Mogul, presumably, had scribbled in the margin. His talon ran across the lines of crabbed writing, then spasmed as it reached the end. Larry's flesh turned the color of arctic ice, and he slowly re-read the passage again.</p>
<p>Then he closed the book with a slap, turning to the still-capering Mogul.</p>
<p>"Uh... B-boss..." he stammered.</p>
<p>"What do *you* want?!?" Mogul bellowed at his student.</p>
<p>"Um, I... er, I mean... that spell..." Larry began.</p>
<p>Larry's mouth shut with a leathery snap as he passed the book to his master, opening it to the page he'd just finished reading. Mogul read, his mouth silently shaping the syllables of his mystical language.</p>
<p>Suddenly, his eyes bugged, and his face turned the color of driftwood. "This... this is..."</p>
<p>"...A very lucky break for the good guys, believe it," Buzzwang drawled in a Carribbean patois from the floor. His body relaxed and he lay flat, then raised his head up to face the sorceror and his apprentice. Incredibly, the rigid duralloy on his faceplate softened and warped, forming what looked very much like a smile.</p>
<p>"I do believe that you meant to cast a Mind *Twist*, Mogul," Buzzwang said, now speaking in a standard North American English pattern. His voice was deep, fluid, and... There was no other way to say it: alive.</p>
<p>"You've just increased my cerebral capacity by a couple of generations of Artificial Intelligence with that botched spell. To be fair, it has also cut my operational lifespan to twenty-three hours and an odd handful of minutes, but I personally guarantee that you'll remember those twenty-three hours and odd handful of minutes for the rest of your life."</p>
<p>Buzzwang coiled his legs and bounced up into the air, then fired off two punches to the Gunslinger's wrists that released the organic Rangers; they dropped to the ground, gasping, but managed to stay on their feet. The Gunslinger clasped his damaged hands with his free ones, rubbing them briskly. "Oooh, that stung," he said. "Stung a lot. Didn't like it, not a bit. Gonna take the metal-guy down, bit by bit. Yeah..." He went for his guns, then frowned as he realized that they weren't in his holsters.</p>
<p>"No guns in here," he grumbled, now geniuinely irritated. "No good. Need m'guns. Hate going in empty-handed, yup..."</p>
<p>With a two-handed gesture to the Gunslinger, Mogul made four short, thick clubs appear in the fighter's huge fists.</p>
<p>"Solid!" the other exclaimed, and started weaving a wooden web of pain for the Rangers.</p>
<p>That task accomplished, the sorceror focused on his servants. "Get those Rangers!" Mogul shouted to the demons while motioning to the hooded servitors of the fortress.</p>
<p>The Rangers leaped into a defensive triangle-position, each covering the others' backs. They circled, trying to keep their fifteen opponents in view while edging slowly toward the door.</p>
<p>"Outnumbered?" Doc asked.</p>
<p>"Yeah," Niko answered. "Outmaneuvered?" she added.</p>
<p>"Mmmaybe," Buzzwang answered in his new, almost musical voice.</p>
<p>Suddenly, the left side of his faceplate shifted upwards, approximating a grin.</p>
<p>"Outclassed?" he asked.</p>
<p>"NEVER!" the Rangers chorused, and the battle was joined...</p>


<hr>
* [[Goose Saves Terra]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part II]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part III]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part IV]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part V]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part VI]]
* [[Goose Saves Terra-Part VII]]


As the three Rangers trooped through the halls, quietly following their 'guides', a breeze whispered past them, bearing a hint of the sea and something... old... and dry...
Niko's face was suddenly lit from within by the first genuine smile Doc had seen her make since arriving on the island.
"When the sun is too high
And the moon is too cold
Our shadows converse
With the things that are old."
Doc stopped and turned wide eyes toward her. "What brought that on?"
His partner's expression softened a bit, but the smile never wavered. "Can't you smell it? It's an archeologist's favorite find: a Library."
She took a few double-time steps to catch up with the hooded servants, then resumed a pursuit pace when the 'boys' caught up with her.
"It's from a poem one of my teachers liked to say whenever he didn't like the weather back home; he'd say it drove him into the library. Of course, about the only thing that didn't send him into the library withou a pressing reason not to was the need to relieve himself..."
She paused, lost in memories of simpler times, then continued. "He said that the poem itself originated with a bit of graffitti found in the Earth city of Nineveh, dating from 1991 A.C.E., but the rest of it really isn't very pleasant."
"Oh."
Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering through endless corridors, the servitors approached a thick, iron door; it was the first door the Rangers had seen anywhere in the fortress made of anything more durable than iron-studded oak. There were also thirteen intricate sigils, faintly glowing a disturbing shade of acid-green and seeming to float just beneath the surface of the wood and iron in the door. As the servitors approached, the sigils flared for a moment, then faded as the door swung inward on well-oiled hinges.
"I don't like that," Doc commented as the door closed; none of the Rangers bothered trying to make a run for it, as there simply wasn't enough time.
"Can you make any sense out of those pictograms?" he asked Niko.
The esper looked at them for a moment, squinting, then turned her head away with a shiver. "They make my eyes hurt," she said, still not looking at the door. "But I feel drawn to look at them again."
Doc nodded. "I guess it's my turn." He motioned Niko and Buzzwang into a small, shadowed alcove before he pulled his CDU off his belt. He touched his badge, hoping that the flare from his Badge wouldn't attract any attention.
"Tripwire, we need to find a way through the security-fields around the Library," Doc said to the tweaker as it flitted out of the unit. He pointed at the main entrance to the room in question, then tracked his tweaker's flight path. "And see if you can find another way in that leads to someplace where we can watch what's going on in there."
"Sure thing, Doc," Tripwire chirped, then zipped to work.
Doc watched, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I really should be more careful in this environment, he murmured to himself. As Tripwire made contact with the strange wards, Doc's breathing became ragged; Niko helped him lean against the alcove wall for support.
Minutes passed like hours, and Doc's eyes rolled up into his head. Niko was considering asking Buzzwang to help her get Doc onto the floor when Tripwire finally sped out of the Library door and back into the CDU.
Instantly, the color returned to Doc's face, and his breathing evened out. "Whoo..." he managed, wiping his face with a bandanna. "Next time step a little more lively, okay?"
"Sorry, Doc, but these security fields are really weird."
"Did you find a way in?"
"Yeah. There's a staircase about thirty meters up the corridor to the left. Two flights up, and there's a door to some kind of gallery around the outer edge of the library."
"Did you see anyone inside?"
"Yeah. Mogul, Larry, and their demons. And eight of those guys in hoods."
"Can you get us through the security fields up there?"
"It'll be tricky, and I can only do it for a couple of seconds, but yeah."
A few minutes later, the team was in the Library. It was three stories tall, with shelves of books extending out from a central well like spokes on a wheel. The top story, where Tripwire had led them, only had shelves for a third of the floor's circumference; the space on the rest of the floor was devoted to examples of Chinese art dating as far back as the first century C.E. Fortunately for the Rangers, there were also some benches that made for a convenient 'duck blind'.
Two floors below them, Morgul was engrossed in an ancient-looking tome. One arm was scribbling notes on a pad, another was furiously working an abacus, a third was running a finger up and down the columns of text, and the fourth was simply cupping his chin while a claw tapped at a stiff part of his mouth.
Niko whispered to Doc, "It looks like he's studying the I Ching, an ancient book on Chinese divination."
Doc nodded, his attention focused on another, smaller and square table a few feet away from Mogul's. Larry was seated at a chair with his back to his master, also reading from a book; a hand of what looked like Western playing cards gripped in his fingers and a card-dealer's bill-cap perched on his forehead. On each of the remaining sides of the table sat one of Mogul's demon servitors, also holding five cards, looking at Larry with vaguely bored expressions. Eight white plastic disks sat in a pile in the middle of the table, and the supply of chips in front of all the players seemed about equal.
"And our friend Larry there is studying the 1769 edition of _Hoyle's Rules of Games_," Doc said, indicating the tome which commanded all of the apprentice sorceror's attention.
Niko squinted, then glanced at Doc. "How can you tell which edition he's reading at this range? I can barely see make out the title."
Doc shrugged. "Sheerest logic, my dear Niko. The 1769 edition was the first and only one written and edited by Hoyle himself." He waved a free hand and glanced around, indicating the Library and the fortress-island as a whole. "This doesn't strike me as the kind of place run by people who would settle for 'revised' editions."
While Niko considered this, Doc pointed at the eight hooded servants standing around the room; two on either side of the main door, and two near each of the sorcerors. "I wonder if there are any more around?"
Niko shrugged, then settled herself a bit more comfortably to observe the scene unfolding below.
"Okay, now, anyone want to bet?" Larry prompted the demons, attention locked on the text.
"Two," rumbled the demon to Larry's left, tossing a pair of white chips into the pot. The other demons followed suit, none raising. It was slightly eerie, how all three of the demons could have such differently-pitched voices while managing almost identical tones.
Larry absently tossed in two blue chips, never looking away from the book; the demon to his left reached out and put the chips back in the apprentice's pile and replaced them with a pair of white ones. Larry's dealer-shade never stopped swiveling back and forth as he read.
"I think someone's going to get taken," Doc commented under his breath.
After a few moments, Larry started to pull two cards out of his hand, then paused. "Oh, yeah." He turned to the demon to his left. "Do you want any cards?"
"One," was the reply. Larry passed him one, then went to the next.
"Three."
"One."
"...And, uh, dealer takes two," Larry said. As he looked at his cards, his face almost split in an evil grin as his eyes went wide. "Anyone want to bet now?" he asked, utterly failing to keep a gleeful note out of his voice.
All three demons folded their hands shut and placed them down on the table. "Fold," they said in unison.
Larry's jaw dropped. "You can't do that!" he screeched. "I got a flush!" He turned his hand around for everyone, including the hidden Rangers, to see.
Doc's eyes widened, then he clasped both hands over his mouth as tears started squeezing themselves out of his clamped-shut eyes.
"What?" Niko demanded in a whisper, nudging him with her shoulder and unable to keep herself from grinning.
Her partner's shoulders shaking with silent laughter, he managed to whisper back, "That's not a flush, it's a *straight*, and he *drew* to it. He's REALLY in trouble now."
Sure enough, as soon as the demons had gotten a good look at Larry's cards, they stood up in perfect synchronization, pushing their chairs back and facing the apprentice sorceror. Before the suddenly bug-eyed being could so much as stammer, "W-w-w-what?", they had gathered him up in their steel-strong, spindly arms: one held his legs, and each of the other two pinned his hands and legs.
Mogul, still deep in his contemplation of ancient Chinese esoterica, merely raised the hand from the abacus, pointing at a statue in an alcove opposite the Rangers' observation post. In it was a statue of a rather human-seeming monkey in ornate robes and wielding a strange-looking staff. The demons bowed, still holding Larry above their heads, then rotated their prisoner to face the statue head-on.
"What're you... hey, c'mon, this isn't... what'd I... Hey!" Larry sputtered as he was carried forward like a a battering-ram toward a castle-door.
"Kiss the King, Kiss the King," chanted the demons in a chorus that sounded like an orchestrated pack of growling dogs.
"That's K'un Wu Sun, the Monkey King," Niko said, stifling a laugh of her own.
Doc managed to gasp, "Word to the wise, Buzzwang: Never, ever, *ever* draw to an inside straight," before collapsing in helpless, silent laughter.
Niko forced herself to watch until the two demons on Larry's arms each released one hand; Larry's front was now supported on the left demon's palm on his chest and the right demon's vise-like grip holding his wrists to his midsection. They each put the palms of their now-free hands on either side of Larry's face to make sure he landed a juicy buss on the statue's wide mouth.
But what left even Niko's legendary self-control in tatters and scraps was the low, sonorous call of "mmmmuuu-WAH!" that the demons made as Larry made contact.
The Rangers were too busy laughing, and Buzzwang too deeply engrossed in observing their behavior, to notice the heavy 'thud, thud' of approaching feet until it was too late. Huge, hornlike hands grabbed them all by the neck, cutting off their laughter instantly. The Gunslinger held the three up, their boots several centimeters off the ground.
"Didn't see me readin' in the corner," he muttered, clumping toward the stairs with his burdens, Doc and Niko on one side, the heavy Buzzwang on the other. "Wrecked a good story. Gonna make 'em pay for that. Oh, yeah, man..."
Niko managed to pick out the Gunslinger's 'corner' and noted the scroll left mostly-unrolled along the floor and beside the chair; with a split-second to observe it, she could almost swear that it was a children's reader for basic Cantonese.
"You betcha, can't stand buttinskies, dig it," the Gunslinger grumbled as he ambled down the stairs toward the main level. "Spoil everything, they do. Yeah. Solid..."
Murmuring to himself the entire way, the Gunslinger stopped when he made it to the opposite side of Mogul's table. The sorceror finished writing a sentence, then put the pen down. His other hands closed the book and cleared the abacus so he could focus his attention on the intruders.
"Thought I wouldn't notice your little toys, didn't'cha, Doc? Thought you could just sneak in here and watch me study your Earth-magicks, didn't'cha, Niko? Ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, what else could you do? You're just Galaxy Rangers, got no respect for magic anywhere, even on your home planet." He chuckled in his irritating, high-pitched staccato. "You're messing with *Mogul*, you blue-and-white bums, and you're not gonna stop me from taking over this planet!"
He reached into his robe and pulled out a deck of playing cards. "I'd never let Larry study anything I hadn't mastered myself, you know," he commented, shuffling them with surprisingly fluid motions of his nut-brown fingers. "Let's see how you like *this* little message from your planet's greatest sorceror, Edmond Hoyle!"
Suddenly, he held up one three-fingered hand to face Buzzwang. "Mind Tweak!" Mogul shouted, a hand of cards appearing in his palm. "This should teach you something! Ha ha ha ha ha!"
Doc's heart sank as he saw a Royal Flush with a Joker at the Queen's place in the villain's grip; "Whatever he's throwing a Buzzwang, it's going to hurt a lot..." he thought to himself.
The cards evaporated into wisps of glimmering white smoke which spiralled and swooped out of Mogul's palm, wrapping around Buzzwang's stiff body. The Gunslinger dropped him to the floor, wringing that hand and making pained comments to himself which the Rangers ignored while they watched Buzzwang in horror. The spell seeped into the android's body, fading through his outer plating like the duralloy was a hologram. Light began to flare from the joints in Buzzwang's limbs; just flickers at first, then getting stronger. An electronic scream sounded from his jaws, as lightning began to play across the top of his head. His back arched and his hands clawed as the electrical discharges danced up and down his frame.
Suddenly, it was over. A final spark glimmered from a hollow at the base of his throat, then winked out.
"See? See?!? That's what happens to people who cross me! Ha ha hahahaha!" Mogul chortled, almost dancing a jig in his robe as he laughed.
Doc found himself feeling sorry that the android had gone out like that. Sure, Buzzwang had been an annoying being, his voice had gotten on Doc's nerves, and he'd never gotten over that ridiculous desire to be human, but the android at least deserved to go out fighting...
"Well, so much for 'Terra's defenses'," Niko murmured.
Doc nodded... Wait. Had one of Buzzwang's fingers twitched?
Larry frowned, then turned to _Hoyle's Rules of Card Games_. He flipped through the pages, eyes flickering at the text. He stopped, then turned the book sideways to study the notes that Mogul, presumably, had scribbled in the margin. His talon ran across the lines of crabbed writing, then spasmed as it reached the end. Larry's flesh turned the color of arctic ice, and he slowly re-read the passage again.
Then he closed the book with a slap, turning to the still-capering Mogul.
"Uh... B-boss..." he stammered.
"What do *you* want?!?" Mogul bellowed at his student.
"Um, I... er, I mean... that spell..." Larry began.
Larry's mouth shut with a leathery snap as he passed the book to his master, opening it to the page he'd just finished reading. Mogul read, his mouth silently shaping the syllables of his mystical language.
Suddenly, his eyes bugged, and his face turned the color of driftwood. "This... this is..."
"...A very lucky break for the good guys, believe it," Buzzwang drawled in a Carribbean patois from the floor. His body relaxed and he lay flat, then raised his head up to face the sorceror and his apprentice. Incredibly, the rigid duralloy on his faceplate softened and warped, forming what looked very much like a smile.
"I do believe that you meant to cast a Mind *Twist*, Mogul," Buzzwang said, now speaking in a standard North American English pattern. His voice was deep, fluid, and... There was no other way to say it: alive.
"You've just increased my cerebral capacity by a couple of generations of Artificial Intelligence with that botched spell. To be fair, it has also cut my operational lifespan to twenty-three hours and an odd handful of minutes, but I personally guarantee that you'll remember those twenty-three hours and odd handful of minutes for the rest of your life."
Buzzwang coiled his legs and bounced up into the air, then fired off two punches to the Gunslinger's wrists that released the organic Rangers; they dropped to the ground, gasping, but managed to stay on their feet. The Gunslinger clasped his damaged hands with his free ones, rubbing them briskly. "Oooh, that stung," he said. "Stung a lot. Didn't like it, not a bit. Gonna take the metal-guy down, bit by bit. Yeah..." He went for his guns, then frowned as he realized that they weren't in his holsters.
"No guns in here," he grumbled, now geniuinely irritated. "No good. Need m'guns. Hate going in empty-handed, yup..."
With a two-handed gesture to the Gunslinger, Mogul made four short, thick clubs appear in the fighter's huge fists.
"Solid!" the other exclaimed, and started weaving a wooden web of pain for the Rangers.
That task accomplished, the sorceror focused on his servants. "Get those Rangers!" Mogul shouted to the demons while motioning to the hooded servitors of the fortress.
The Rangers leaped into a defensive triangle-position, each covering the others' backs. They circled, trying to keep their fifteen opponents in view while edging slowly toward the door.
"Outnumbered?" Doc asked.
"Yeah," Niko answered. "Outmaneuvered?" she added.
"Mmmaybe," Buzzwang answered in his new, almost musical voice.
Suddenly, the left side of his faceplate shifted upwards, approximating a grin.
"Outclassed?" he asked.
"NEVER!" the Rangers chorused, and the battle was joined...
----
[[Goose Saves Terra-Part V|Back to Part V]] ~ [[Goose Saves Terra-Part VII|Continue to Part VII]]
[[Category:GRCD1]]
[[Category:Fanfic-Unrated]]
[[Category:Fanfic-Unrated]]
[[Category:Fanfic-Perrin Rynning]]
[[Category:Fanfic-Perrin Rynning]]
[[Category:Fanfic]]
[[Category:Fanfic]]

Latest revision as of 08:42, 14 April 2019


Goose Saves Terra-Part VI


Note: For those of you who don't recognize the acronyms, "B.C.E." stands for "Before Christian Era" and "C.E." means "Christian Era"; they are alternatives for "B.C." and "A.D.", respectively, which are used by some archeologists to avoid using a 'religious' dating system unless they absolutely have to. Since I don't know what calendar system the Rangers use, I improvised.


As the three Rangers trooped through the halls, quietly following their 'guides', a breeze whispered past them, bearing a hint of the sea and something... old... and dry...

Niko's face was suddenly lit from within by the first genuine smile Doc had seen her make since arriving on the island.

 

"When the sun is too high
And the moon is too cold
Our shadows converse
With the things that are old."

Doc stopped and turned wide eyes toward her. "What brought that on?"

His partner's expression softened a bit, but the smile never wavered. "Can't you smell it? It's an archeologist's favorite find: a Library."

She took a few double-time steps to catch up with the hooded servants, then resumed a pursuit pace when the 'boys' caught up with her.

"It's from a poem one of my teachers liked to say whenever he didn't like the weather back home; he'd say it drove him into the library. Of course, about the only thing that didn't send him into the library withou a pressing reason not to was the need to relieve himself..."

She paused, lost in memories of simpler times, then continued. "He said that the poem itself originated with a bit of graffitti found in the Earth city of Nineveh, dating from 1991 A.C.E., but the rest of it really isn't very pleasant."

"Oh."

Finally, after what felt like hours of wandering through endless corridors, the servitors approached a thick, iron door; it was the first door the Rangers had seen anywhere in the fortress made of anything more durable than iron-studded oak. There were also thirteen intricate sigils, faintly glowing a disturbing shade of acid-green and seeming to float just beneath the surface of the wood and iron in the door. As the servitors approached, the sigils flared for a moment, then faded as the door swung inward on well-oiled hinges.

"I don't like that," Doc commented as the door closed; none of the Rangers bothered trying to make a run for it, as there simply wasn't enough time.

"Can you make any sense out of those pictograms?" he asked Niko.

The esper looked at them for a moment, squinting, then turned her head away with a shiver. "They make my eyes hurt," she said, still not looking at the door. "But I feel drawn to look at them again."

Doc nodded. "I guess it's my turn." He motioned Niko and Buzzwang into a small, shadowed alcove before he pulled his CDU off his belt. He touched his badge, hoping that the flare from his Badge wouldn't attract any attention.

"Tripwire, we need to find a way through the security-fields around the Library," Doc said to the tweaker as it flitted out of the unit. He pointed at the main entrance to the room in question, then tracked his tweaker's flight path. "And see if you can find another way in that leads to someplace where we can watch what's going on in there."

"Sure thing, Doc," Tripwire chirped, then zipped to work.

Doc watched, beads of sweat breaking out on his forehead. "I really should be more careful in this environment, he murmured to himself. As Tripwire made contact with the strange wards, Doc's breathing became ragged; Niko helped him lean against the alcove wall for support.

Minutes passed like hours, and Doc's eyes rolled up into his head. Niko was considering asking Buzzwang to help her get Doc onto the floor when Tripwire finally sped out of the Library door and back into the CDU.

Instantly, the color returned to Doc's face, and his breathing evened out. "Whoo..." he managed, wiping his face with a bandanna. "Next time step a little more lively, okay?"

"Sorry, Doc, but these security fields are really weird."

"Did you find a way in?"

"Yeah. There's a staircase about thirty meters up the corridor to the left. Two flights up, and there's a door to some kind of gallery around the outer edge of the library."

"Did you see anyone inside?"

"Yeah. Mogul, Larry, and their demons. And eight of those guys in hoods."

"Can you get us through the security fields up there?"

"It'll be tricky, and I can only do it for a couple of seconds, but yeah."

A few minutes later, the team was in the Library. It was three stories tall, with shelves of books extending out from a central well like spokes on a wheel. The top story, where Tripwire had led them, only had shelves for a third of the floor's circumference; the space on the rest of the floor was devoted to examples of Chinese art dating as far back as the first century C.E. Fortunately for the Rangers, there were also some benches that made for a convenient 'duck blind'.

Two floors below them, Morgul was engrossed in an ancient-looking tome. One arm was scribbling notes on a pad, another was furiously working an abacus, a third was running a finger up and down the columns of text, and the fourth was simply cupping his chin while a claw tapped at a stiff part of his mouth.

Niko whispered to Doc, "It looks like he's studying the I Ching, an ancient book on Chinese divination."

Doc nodded, his attention focused on another, smaller and square table a few feet away from Mogul's. Larry was seated at a chair with his back to his master, also reading from a book; a hand of what looked like Western playing cards gripped in his fingers and a card-dealer's bill-cap perched on his forehead. On each of the remaining sides of the table sat one of Mogul's demon servitors, also holding five cards, looking at Larry with vaguely bored expressions. Eight white plastic disks sat in a pile in the middle of the table, and the supply of chips in front of all the players seemed about equal.

"And our friend Larry there is studying the 1769 edition of _Hoyle's Rules of Games_," Doc said, indicating the tome which commanded all of the apprentice sorceror's attention.

Niko squinted, then glanced at Doc. "How can you tell which edition he's reading at this range? I can barely see make out the title."

Doc shrugged. "Sheerest logic, my dear Niko. The 1769 edition was the first and only one written and edited by Hoyle himself." He waved a free hand and glanced around, indicating the Library and the fortress-island as a whole. "This doesn't strike me as the kind of place run by people who would settle for 'revised' editions."

While Niko considered this, Doc pointed at the eight hooded servants standing around the room; two on either side of the main door, and two near each of the sorcerors. "I wonder if there are any more around?"

Niko shrugged, then settled herself a bit more comfortably to observe the scene unfolding below.

"Okay, now, anyone want to bet?" Larry prompted the demons, attention locked on the text.

"Two," rumbled the demon to Larry's left, tossing a pair of white chips into the pot. The other demons followed suit, none raising. It was slightly eerie, how all three of the demons could have such differently-pitched voices while managing almost identical tones.

Larry absently tossed in two blue chips, never looking away from the book; the demon to his left reached out and put the chips back in the apprentice's pile and replaced them with a pair of white ones. Larry's dealer-shade never stopped swiveling back and forth as he read.

"I think someone's going to get taken," Doc commented under his breath.

After a few moments, Larry started to pull two cards out of his hand, then paused. "Oh, yeah." He turned to the demon to his left. "Do you want any cards?"

"One," was the reply. Larry passed him one, then went to the next.

"Three."

"One."

"...And, uh, dealer takes two," Larry said. As he looked at his cards, his face almost split in an evil grin as his eyes went wide. "Anyone want to bet now?" he asked, utterly failing to keep a gleeful note out of his voice.

All three demons folded their hands shut and placed them down on the table. "Fold," they said in unison.

Larry's jaw dropped. "You can't do that!" he screeched. "I got a flush!" He turned his hand around for everyone, including the hidden Rangers, to see.

Doc's eyes widened, then he clasped both hands over his mouth as tears started squeezing themselves out of his clamped-shut eyes.

"What?" Niko demanded in a whisper, nudging him with her shoulder and unable to keep herself from grinning.

Her partner's shoulders shaking with silent laughter, he managed to whisper back, "That's not a flush, it's a *straight*, and he *drew* to it. He's REALLY in trouble now."

Sure enough, as soon as the demons had gotten a good look at Larry's cards, they stood up in perfect synchronization, pushing their chairs back and facing the apprentice sorceror. Before the suddenly bug-eyed being could so much as stammer, "W-w-w-what?", they had gathered him up in their steel-strong, spindly arms: one held his legs, and each of the other two pinned his hands and legs.

Mogul, still deep in his contemplation of ancient Chinese esoterica, merely raised the hand from the abacus, pointing at a statue in an alcove opposite the Rangers' observation post. In it was a statue of a rather human-seeming monkey in ornate robes and wielding a strange-looking staff. The demons bowed, still holding Larry above their heads, then rotated their prisoner to face the statue head-on.

"What're you... hey, c'mon, this isn't... what'd I... Hey!" Larry sputtered as he was carried forward like a a battering-ram toward a castle-door.

"Kiss the King, Kiss the King," chanted the demons in a chorus that sounded like an orchestrated pack of growling dogs.

"That's K'un Wu Sun, the Monkey King," Niko said, stifling a laugh of her own.

Doc managed to gasp, "Word to the wise, Buzzwang: Never, ever, *ever* draw to an inside straight," before collapsing in helpless, silent laughter.

Niko forced herself to watch until the two demons on Larry's arms each released one hand; Larry's front was now supported on the left demon's palm on his chest and the right demon's vise-like grip holding his wrists to his midsection. They each put the palms of their now-free hands on either side of Larry's face to make sure he landed a juicy buss on the statue's wide mouth.

But what left even Niko's legendary self-control in tatters and scraps was the low, sonorous call of "mmmmuuu-WAH!" that the demons made as Larry made contact.

The Rangers were too busy laughing, and Buzzwang too deeply engrossed in observing their behavior, to notice the heavy 'thud, thud' of approaching feet until it was too late. Huge, hornlike hands grabbed them all by the neck, cutting off their laughter instantly. The Gunslinger held the three up, their boots several centimeters off the ground.

"Didn't see me readin' in the corner," he muttered, clumping toward the stairs with his burdens, Doc and Niko on one side, the heavy Buzzwang on the other. "Wrecked a good story. Gonna make 'em pay for that. Oh, yeah, man..."

Niko managed to pick out the Gunslinger's 'corner' and noted the scroll left mostly-unrolled along the floor and beside the chair; with a split-second to observe it, she could almost swear that it was a children's reader for basic Cantonese.

"You betcha, can't stand buttinskies, dig it," the Gunslinger grumbled as he ambled down the stairs toward the main level. "Spoil everything, they do. Yeah. Solid..."

Murmuring to himself the entire way, the Gunslinger stopped when he made it to the opposite side of Mogul's table. The sorceror finished writing a sentence, then put the pen down. His other hands closed the book and cleared the abacus so he could focus his attention on the intruders.

"Thought I wouldn't notice your little toys, didn't'cha, Doc? Thought you could just sneak in here and watch me study your Earth-magicks, didn't'cha, Niko? Ha ha ha ha ha! Ah, what else could you do? You're just Galaxy Rangers, got no respect for magic anywhere, even on your home planet." He chuckled in his irritating, high-pitched staccato. "You're messing with *Mogul*, you blue-and-white bums, and you're not gonna stop me from taking over this planet!"

He reached into his robe and pulled out a deck of playing cards. "I'd never let Larry study anything I hadn't mastered myself, you know," he commented, shuffling them with surprisingly fluid motions of his nut-brown fingers. "Let's see how you like *this* little message from your planet's greatest sorceror, Edmond Hoyle!"

Suddenly, he held up one three-fingered hand to face Buzzwang. "Mind Tweak!" Mogul shouted, a hand of cards appearing in his palm. "This should teach you something! Ha ha ha ha ha!"

Doc's heart sank as he saw a Royal Flush with a Joker at the Queen's place in the villain's grip; "Whatever he's throwing a Buzzwang, it's going to hurt a lot..." he thought to himself.

The cards evaporated into wisps of glimmering white smoke which spiralled and swooped out of Mogul's palm, wrapping around Buzzwang's stiff body. The Gunslinger dropped him to the floor, wringing that hand and making pained comments to himself which the Rangers ignored while they watched Buzzwang in horror. The spell seeped into the android's body, fading through his outer plating like the duralloy was a hologram. Light began to flare from the joints in Buzzwang's limbs; just flickers at first, then getting stronger. An electronic scream sounded from his jaws, as lightning began to play across the top of his head. His back arched and his hands clawed as the electrical discharges danced up and down his frame.

Suddenly, it was over. A final spark glimmered from a hollow at the base of his throat, then winked out.

"See? See?!? That's what happens to people who cross me! Ha ha hahahaha!" Mogul chortled, almost dancing a jig in his robe as he laughed.

Doc found himself feeling sorry that the android had gone out like that. Sure, Buzzwang had been an annoying being, his voice had gotten on Doc's nerves, and he'd never gotten over that ridiculous desire to be human, but the android at least deserved to go out fighting...

"Well, so much for 'Terra's defenses'," Niko murmured.

Doc nodded... Wait. Had one of Buzzwang's fingers twitched?

Larry frowned, then turned to _Hoyle's Rules of Card Games_. He flipped through the pages, eyes flickering at the text. He stopped, then turned the book sideways to study the notes that Mogul, presumably, had scribbled in the margin. His talon ran across the lines of crabbed writing, then spasmed as it reached the end. Larry's flesh turned the color of arctic ice, and he slowly re-read the passage again.

Then he closed the book with a slap, turning to the still-capering Mogul.

"Uh... B-boss..." he stammered.

"What do *you* want?!?" Mogul bellowed at his student.

"Um, I... er, I mean... that spell..." Larry began.

Larry's mouth shut with a leathery snap as he passed the book to his master, opening it to the page he'd just finished reading. Mogul read, his mouth silently shaping the syllables of his mystical language.

Suddenly, his eyes bugged, and his face turned the color of driftwood. "This... this is..."

"...A very lucky break for the good guys, believe it," Buzzwang drawled in a Carribbean patois from the floor. His body relaxed and he lay flat, then raised his head up to face the sorceror and his apprentice. Incredibly, the rigid duralloy on his faceplate softened and warped, forming what looked very much like a smile.

"I do believe that you meant to cast a Mind *Twist*, Mogul," Buzzwang said, now speaking in a standard North American English pattern. His voice was deep, fluid, and... There was no other way to say it: alive.

"You've just increased my cerebral capacity by a couple of generations of Artificial Intelligence with that botched spell. To be fair, it has also cut my operational lifespan to twenty-three hours and an odd handful of minutes, but I personally guarantee that you'll remember those twenty-three hours and odd handful of minutes for the rest of your life."

Buzzwang coiled his legs and bounced up into the air, then fired off two punches to the Gunslinger's wrists that released the organic Rangers; they dropped to the ground, gasping, but managed to stay on their feet. The Gunslinger clasped his damaged hands with his free ones, rubbing them briskly. "Oooh, that stung," he said. "Stung a lot. Didn't like it, not a bit. Gonna take the metal-guy down, bit by bit. Yeah..." He went for his guns, then frowned as he realized that they weren't in his holsters.

"No guns in here," he grumbled, now geniuinely irritated. "No good. Need m'guns. Hate going in empty-handed, yup..."

With a two-handed gesture to the Gunslinger, Mogul made four short, thick clubs appear in the fighter's huge fists.

"Solid!" the other exclaimed, and started weaving a wooden web of pain for the Rangers.

That task accomplished, the sorceror focused on his servants. "Get those Rangers!" Mogul shouted to the demons while motioning to the hooded servitors of the fortress.

The Rangers leaped into a defensive triangle-position, each covering the others' backs. They circled, trying to keep their fifteen opponents in view while edging slowly toward the door.

"Outnumbered?" Doc asked.

"Yeah," Niko answered. "Outmaneuvered?" she added.

"Mmmaybe," Buzzwang answered in his new, almost musical voice.

Suddenly, the left side of his faceplate shifted upwards, approximating a grin.

"Outclassed?" he asked.

"NEVER!" the Rangers chorused, and the battle was joined...